And no, this has nothing to do with baseball…but I know Cecil had a column about perfect pitch before…
Well, I’m blessed/cursed with perfect pitch…blessed in that it is pretty cool, as it makes musical pieces easy to learn to play, it’s easy to learn harmonies…but a curse in that if I hear something not in a key I’m used to, it just doesn’t sound right.
And also a curse for this reason…I’ve been battling a nasty bronchitis infection for almost a month…it’s going away slowly but surely…but over the past couple of days I’ve noticed that everything sounds a quarter-tone flat! Music on the radio, music in my collection, phones ringing, dialtones, my boss’s voice (interestingly, my wife’s voice and my dog’s voice don’t sound noticeably flatter), the “doors closing” chimes on the CTA L system, pretty much everything sounds a quarter-tone flat…
One of my symptoms with my infection was that my right ear was kinda blocked up, and one of the medicines my doctor gave me was to help open it up (it’s almost back to normal), so I’m wondering if that affected it…
And I know from Cecil’s column that as people with perfect pitch get older, things get a little screwy in the ear and it drives them nuts…how older?? I dunno…I’m only 34, so I’m guessing this is just related to my illness, especially considering it happened overnight practically…
Hello ScatterFrog. Just FYI, it is considered a courtesy here to include a link to the article you are posting about, so that the rest of us can easily contribute.
I wouldn’t have thought so, since it sounded like your question could have stood alone and wasn’t necessarily referring to any particular piece of info in the earlier thread.
As to the OP itself, I have nothing to contribute. Sorry.
I think you’re right to suspect your ears. Clearly, talking out my ass here, but things that are congested are going to move slower and I would think that may even attenuate sound waves. FWIW, I went to (music) school with a guy who played trumpet, and he had a version of perfect pitch, but he heard everything transposed a whole step. What we called B flat, he heard as C. He just had to be mindful of that as he tried to make sense of what he was listening to. But he was still a killer in ear training class.
Paula (sings lead in our band) does not have perfect pitch but does have an exceptionally accurate ear. Got an ear infection in one ear and–dunno if it was the fluid, the infection, or the drugs–heard 1/2 tone higher in that one. Not in the other one. Ack!
For encouragement, it only lasted a week or so and everything is now good.
I’m only an amateur singer, but I do have perfect pitch (or very close). I’ve had this happen to me a couple of times. My non-MD WAG is that the cochlea is temporarily deformed a bit from swelling in the ear. It should go away in a day or few when your condition improves. If not, see your doctor.
I’ve also experienced it momentarily during extra-big yawns.
As far as the sharpening due to aging mentioned in the article, I’m over 50 and haven’t noticed it.
If he played a B-flat trumpet, playing a C as notated on his sheet music comes out as B flat. If he heard a B flat on the piano or violin, he’d notate it as C.
I’m not sure I did. Did he really hear everything transposed up (or down) a step, or did he just have different names for the pitches that were off by a step because of his trumpet training? Sounds like he didn’t have a “version” of perfect pitch, but actual perfect pitch with the wrong names of notes (with respect to concert tuning/C instruments) memorized to each pitch.
As far as I can tell, I think I understand what he’s talking about. All of my music education before college (7-12th grade) was with the saxophone. When trying to figure out what a note was on a piano, for instance, I always thought of the pitch on the (E-flat) saxophone, then transposed into C. I don’t have perfect pitch, by a long shot, but I can get within a couple steps on it, usually. (BFD, I know ;))
There’s a drug that, as a side-effect, makes people with perfect pitch hear everything a semitone higher or lower (maybe it has that effect on everybody, but only those with perfect pitch notice). I wish I could remember what drug it is.
Well, now that I think back on it - some *40 years *later ! - I don’t exactly remember. I believe he had perfect pitch named for the notes as he played them and heard them. So if he played a C on his instrument, we all heard B flat and he called it a C. And consequently, when he heard a piece that was in, say, G, he would say it was in A.
Yeah. So it sounds like perfect pitch, except he learned different names for the notes because of his instrument. But it is perfect pitch all the same. After all, the names of the notes are arbitrary (and, historically, pitch has crept upwards. Today we have a standard of A=440, although pitch standards have ranged anywhere from A=320 to A=480 or so [which is anywhere from a modern F to a B-flat today.])
There’s a drug I’ve been on which briefly had an effect of making pitch sound lower than normal, and I’ve found reference to this being reported by other patients, but only on very rare occasions and so I guess it wasn’t the same as you’re thinking of. Damn weird, though.
“A 7-year-old boy began to complain that his pitch perception was decreased just after oral medication with carbamazepine was initiated for the treatment of epilepsy. When he played the piano, he felt as if he had played a musical note of almost a half pitch lower than he had. His pitch perception recovered soon after the cessation of carbamazepine. A 14-year-old girl noted a lowered pitch of music sounds while she played the piano just after the administration of carbamazepine for the treatment of epilepsy. Carbamazepine was withdrawn and the auditory symptoms disappeared. Both patients were musically trained. Reversible pitch perception abnormalities are a rare adverse effect of carbamazepine, however, the clinical features of the reported cases were similar; they were musically trained, young, female and Japanese. Although the mechanism remains unclear, we have to pay attention to this subtle adverse effect when we treat epileptic patients with carbamazepine”
from Brain and Development Volume 25, Issue 2, March 2003, Pages 127-129
Yes, that’s it, carbamazepine. Thanks. I read about it in this article. That’s also the first I’d hear of the “stretched octaves” of piano tuning, which I found interesting in itself.
